The inside story of The Monkees by their last surviving member, Micky Dolenz

Originally published in Uncut Take 348 [February 2026 issue], we hear the full story of the pre-Fab Four…

We were always in it together

Mike Nesmith once asked John Lennon what he thought of The Monkees. Do you know what he said? “I think you’re the greatest comic talent since the Marx Brothers.” That was extremely accurate. You see, The Monkees weren’t a band. We were the cast of a musical comedy about an imaginary band. After we were cast, they showed us Marx Brothers and Laurel and Hardy movies, taking us back to the source of physical and verbal comedy.

Interestingly, they never showed us The Three Stooges. You know why? From the start, it was agreed that you would never see a Monkee hit another Monkee. We were always in it together.

I hadn’t met any of the boys before we auditioned. Though I must have seen Mike when he was the hootmaster at the Monday night Hootenanny at the Troubadour, because I was at the Troubadour all the time. I never bumped into Pete [Tork]. I guess I saw Davy [Jones] performing on the Ed Sullivan Show, but we were all watching it for The Beatles, who were on the same night.

We all brought our individual characters to the show

In the audition process, they mixed and matched candidates to see how they sparked off each other. I vaguely remember Davy from the last eight, because we had both been child stars. He was in Oliver! and I had been the star of Circus Boy for three years since I was 10. After the audition, I went back to school. I was training to be an architect. I stayed on even after the pilot episode, because I knew that nine times out of ten, a pilot didn’t sell. My idea was to become an architect but if that didn’t work, I had showbiz to fall back on.

We all met property for the first time at the wardrobe fitting for the pilot. I remember being on the lot at Columbia and somebody introduced us – “You guys are The Monkees.” We all brought our individual characters to the show. I have no idea how they made the casting decisions, except it was apparent they wanted four different personalities.

There was a rumour that The Lovin’ Spoonful had auditioned and, I don’t know for sure, but I would have thought that while they were an incredible band they were all quite similar. Bands tend to attract people with a similar look, sense of humour and background, because whoever starts the group will surround themselves with like-minded people. But this was a TV show, a gang comedy like Cheers or Taxi and you need different looks, style and attitudes. The difference in characters is what makes the show so great, as the producers of The Monkees knew.

“Let’s make a show the kids’ll like!”

That pilot season, there were at least three other music shows that I knew about. There was one called The Happeners, which was about a Peter, Paul and Mary folk band – that went to pilot but didn’t sell. There was another one about a big folk group, like the Christy Minstrel company, and one about a surf band, like the Beach Boys. But I remember thinking right from the get-go that The Monkees was different.

Why was that? Well, when I walked into the office – it may well have been the same one where I auditioned for Circus Boy ten years earlier – there were these two young guys in jeans and t-shirts lounging on the couch. I thought they were there for the audition, but it turned out they were the producers – Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider. They were in their early 30s and dressed like East Coast beatniks. The whole atmosphere was immediately different to other shows, which were made by guys in their 50s and 60s wearing suits, smoking cigars and saying, “Let’s make a show the kids’ll like!”

I read some lines, but they were already looking for improv. They had all these empty paper coffee cups on the table so I picked one up and moved it and went “Check!” I’m told that went a long way to helping me get the part.

I was into music and I had a cover band

There was a script – it was called The Monkeys, spelled the regular way – and my character was called Biff or something. It was obviously a comedy and a bit wacky, but my understanding was you couldn’t get into the audition unless you could sing and play. They auditions were very extensive – much more than any usual sitcom. This one had interviews, improv, singing, playing, screentests – I had to play guitar and sing “Johny B Goode”.

I was into music and I had a cover band, Micky and the One Nighters, playing bowling alleys and I had written a few tunes and could play rhythm guitar. I had already recorded a song called “Don’t Do It”. Nothing much happened with it until the show came on the air and then it was reissued.

The original idea came from Bob Rafelson. Way before A Hard Day’s Night he pitched a show about an itinerant jazz or folk band that he’d worked for in the ‘50s and who had all these crazy adventures.

Nobody was interested until the British Invasion, when he hooked up with Bert Schneider. Bert’s father was the head of Columbia, which was very helpful. The TV subsidiary was Screen Gems, headed by a former child actor called Jackie Cooper.

They had access to this incredible stable of songwriters

It just so happened that Screen Gems had bought a publishing company headed by Don Kirshner working out the Brill Building. Kirshner employed songwriters like Carole King and Neil Diamond, so they had access to this incredible stable of songwriters.

For the TV scripts they found successful writers who were prepared to take a few risks. Very early on, we did improv classes with Jim Frawley, the director who won an Emmy for The Monkees. He came out of Chicago’s Second City with Mike Nichols and Joan Rivers. Mike was wonderful doing improv. Pete was quite good.

But it was very difficult for Davy and me as we were old school. We were used to being given our lines. But then we got into it so deeply it was like a nuclear reactor, where you have to develop a level of chain reaction but if it goes too far it will melt the centre of the earth. You need to contain it without smothering it and the producers and directors had their hands full.

“I hate these fucking kids!”

There were a couple of times when Bob Rafelson had to end a shoot because we were getting so manic. It became very hard for the guest stars. We had one episode with Hans Conried, a wonderful old-school ‘30s/’40s character actor. He learnt his lines and came on set and we were just winging it, throwing these lines around until he couldn’t take it anymore and screamed “I hate these fucking kids!” I couldn’t blame him!

But that’s how they trained us. We had a script and a story, but the tone and spirit came from the improvisation. That was why they had spent so much time casting. They needed these four guys to click. And we clicked instantly. From the first episodes, we would know instantly when we saw a script if something was a Peter line instead of a Davy line. We got that immediately.

I was a guitarist, but they said they already had enough guitar players and needed a drummer. So when the pilot sold, I said, “Where do I start?” That was my attitude. It was just like Circus Boy when they told me I had to learn to ride an elephant. “Where do I start?” I took elephant-riding lessons then and now I learnt to play drums with a great teacher in LA.

We knew we’d be releasing music. Mike could play, Davy could sing and Peter played every instrument you could imagine so it clearly influenced the casting. I think the producers always intended that if the show was successful, we’d get on the road.

We started rehearsing immediately

They clearly had in mind that we would play, otherwise they’d have faked it all like old Hollywood movies. We started rehearsing immediately between scenes, but nobody knew what would happen.

I remember when they showed up with the Monkeemobile. They went to a very famous custom car designer, Dean Jeffries, who made cars for movies and TV. We were shown these very cool drawings and, later, one day when we were filming, we were told the Monkeemobile was ready. Then we heard this roar as the car came in the lot, this beautiful red car towing a trailer that looked like a giant doghouse.

We said, “What is that?” The producers said, “Oh you will love this.” Somebody pulled a lever, the walls came down, the roof turned into a ramp and the whole thing turned into a stage. They said, “You guys are going out in this to play supermarket parking lots!” We all just looked at each other, turned round and walked away – and we never saw that doghouse again. Our expectations were a little higher. But when the first single started to climb the charts we knew we’d go on tour.

There was Carole King at the piano with a tape recorder

When the show began, I was invited to meet the songwriters. There was Carole King at the piano with a tape recorder. Next door was David Gates or Neil Diamond. Looking back, it was incredible. Later, Carole came to my house or I’d go to hers and we’d choose songs, look at arrangements, work out who should sing. It was a collaboration. They had a brief – write pop songs for the Monkees. At first, they didn’t know much about us, but soon they learnt to write in my key. Don Kirshner had golden ears and was responsible for picking a lot of those tunes.

Mike was playing on the sessions from the start. Peter says he turned up to one session with his bass and they asked what he was doing there. But the Wrecking Crew were great musicians and they played on everybody’s songs. They would be in the studio with us and then I’d walk next door and they were doing a session with the Mamas & Papas. The Monkees got all the shit, but we were the ones that didn’t have a choice. The other groups never copped to it until they had to – and some of them still avoid the question.

In those days, it was different playing live to playing in studios. It was very expensive to record, you had a limited amount of time and you only had four tracks to work with. That’s where the studios cats were so good. Very few of them became performers. I can only think of two – Glen Campbell and Leon Russell.

The show debuted in September 1966 and became a hit pretty fast

We shot the pilot and then NBC ordered the first season. The show debuted in September 1966 and became a hit pretty fast. We knew that the show was a success when the first single, “Last Train To Clarksville”, began climbing up the charts to No 1. But we were isolated from the world outside. This was before social media, before paparazzi even. Nobody knew where we lived or where we worked. We were in the studio 10 hours a day, working from 6am, then in the evenings we were in the recording studio. Every day from September we were rehearsing, filming, recording, rehearsing, filming, recording.

We had a Christmas break, our first hiatus from filming. I had to get Christmas presents for my family in San Jose. So I went this mall I’d been using since I was a child, right there in San Fernando Valley where I grew up. I opened the doors, walked in and suddenly heard screaming!

There were people running towards me. I thought there was a fire. So I turned round and opened the door I had just come through saying – “Don’t run!”, “Walk!”, “Calm down!” That’s when I realised it was a herd of kids and they were running at me. I had to get in my car and drive away fast. That was the first time I saw how big it had become.

The Beatles threw us a big party

In 1967, we went to London and The Beatles threw us a big party. I went to a session at Abbey Road in my paisley bell-bottoms and tie-dyed shirts and hair in beads and giant sunglasses. So I was expecting a wild, psychedelic Beatlemania funfest freak out happening and it looked like a high school gymnasium with four guys in jeans and t-shirts, sitting on folding chairs. I must have looked such an idiot. John said, “Hey Monkee man. Do you want to hear what we’re playing on?” George Martin is up in the booth, wearing a three-piece suit, and he presses the button and played “Good Morning, Good Morning”.

We were staying at the Grosvenor. Mike and I had turned up on Top Of The Pops to surprise everybody – that’s where I met my first wife Samantha who was a Top Of The Pops DJ. We must have had a party. Brian Jones hid from the police in one of our rooms and we got a letter from Princes Margaret asking if we could keep the fans quiet.

It was about the struggle for success

The story of the Monkees music and the Monkees TV show are totally different. The TV series was one imaginary group, who lived in an imaginary Malibu beach house. I always wondered how we could afford the beach house when we were always out of work. But that’s the TV show – a rock ‘n roll band that wanted to be The Beatles but never made it. It was about the struggle for success.

That’s what endeared it to kids around the world because on the show, we were never successful. I never thought of it at the time, but later when I began to direct my own TV shows in the UK I realised that the interesting element was that struggle. They could have done some rags-to-riches stories of talented, cute guys who become successful, but that wasn’t as interesting. The struggle made the show, because the kids watching at home weren’t successful. They could relate.

It was like siblings

We did not become a band overnight. We played and rehearsed and began to go through some of the dynamics you’d experience as a traditional band. So you’d be arguing about tempo and key, or where to put the solo. That was the genesis of the other Monkees group, the one we became. But when we went on stage to the fans, it was all the same thing – they were watching the TV band. It was very interesting to try and understand.

In a way, it was easier for us than normal bands – the famous ones that don’t speak to each other now. They were born together, raised together, lived together since they were in high school. We never had a point where we didn’t speak to each other because we were cast together, we didn’t choose each other.

As we spent so much time together, it was like siblings. We had the intimacy of performing and touring, which meant we had good days and we had bad days. I don’t want to say we had fights, but certainly differences – sometimes you just rub each other up the wrong way. But you also have the most hysterical, falling on the ground laughing, having the greatest time in the world.

I have different memories from them all

When I think of those three guys, I have different memories from them all. It’s now two or three years since Mike died, with Peter before that and Davy before. So I have decided to take off the black armband and celebrate the whole Monkees thing, not just the guys, but also the writers and directors and the incredible songwriters.

We got along because we weren’t a band, we were the cast of a musical comedy. People called us a manufactured band, or the pre-Fab Four, but I always compare it to Glee, that TV show about an imaginary glee club in an imaginary high school. Would you call them a manufactured glee club? I don’t get pissed off with people, it’s just wrong.

When you are that successful and it’s that good, you just don’t give a shit. I can’t speak for the others. But I know Mike was frustrated at not getting the opportunity to do his music, because it was very important to him. I couldn’t care less, because it was successful. Sixty year later, I don’t know how much more I have to do and say to prove that.

It was also a time of great turmoil

We got on with the musicians who understood the premise. Frank Zappa was a huge fan. Others didn’t get it. They took their rock ‘n roll very seriously. It was meant to be political and social and serious. Those musicians, who shall remain nameless, thought The Monkees cheapened what they were doing. But the Sixties was a great time in our history – great cultural achievements in music and film and art and literature.

But it was also a time of great turmoil with the counterculture, wars, assassination, women’s right and civil rights. There was a lot of divisiveness in our country – unlike today when everything is just beautiful. Then in the midst of this every Monday night came this show about long-haired weirdoes. Before The Monkees, the only time you saw long-haired weirdoes on TV they were being arrested.

It comes back to my original point. A point I’m still trying to get across, 60 years later. To call The Monkees a band or a group is incorrect. Mike Nesmith summed it up beautifully: “The first time we went on the road and performed before thousands of kids – that’s when Pinocchio became a real little boy.”